Father and Son Spring Training

Mark and Caden Shapiro (EDDIE MICHELS PHOTO)

He has a life some can only dream of but he has to work for it. He is 13-year old Caden Shapiro, son of the new Toronto Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro.

“It’s a special father son time,” said the senior Shapiro, “Caden says that Halloween and Christmas are okay but his favorite time of the year is spring training.”

The young man got started around age eight as a batboy when his father was the team president of the Cleveland Indians. Something he has been doing with the Blue Jays for almost two weeks, his spring break.

Caden is there when the day starts for the players and ends when the other bat boys finish after the day’s game. It might a bit much for some being so close to the beach, attractions and amusement parks but this young man doesn’t seem to mind.

“It’s awesome,” said Caden of his spring days, “I get here with my dad around 8-8:30 (AM) then leave around 5-5:30 (PM)”

Outside of being a batboy delivering new baseballs to the plate umpire he might just find himself shagging balls during batting practice. But a treat of sorts is getting a few swings in the batting cage.

All this aside it does appear that education does come first as it should and with dad being a Princeton grad it is an obvious factor in this father-son relationship.

Caden Shapiro (EDDIE MICHELS)